Flash Fiction, A few words. Not too many. I promise.

Not too long ago, a time which should have been left for doing something else. I came upon the term Flash Fiction on the Internet. Faster than you can say, “Look a cat”, I was Googling* away, trying to learn all I that I could about flash fiction.

I’ve been anxious to step back into the published waters and this seemed the fastest way to go about it. I had some old stories, yellowing for sure, but just begging to be re-born as Flash Fiction.

My memory let me down in this instance. I thought that all that would be necessary would be a little dusting off of some old chestnuts and then off it would go to some flash fiction publication. But have you ever seen an old chestnut? They’re foul looking, sticky and just a little gooey. I would not eat one of those things. Re-reading my old stories did not bring joy to my heart. If you think I’m bad now, with the comma-splicing and all, you should have read me back in the day. Much worse.

The other area where memory failed to serve was in remembering just how short my stories actually were; not very. Well, they were short for novels, but most were several thousands of words too long for flash fiction. There would be some re-imagining and re-writing required in order to get any of my stories into the target range of less than 1,000 words, or better yet, less than 500 words.

Eventually I chose on old favorite, a shorter old favorite. I did some minor re-working of the story and sent it off for publication. I fully expected to be cashing a $60 check in just a few weeks’ time. It had worked that way for me in the past.

Anyway, the weeks came and they went and I heard nothing until… an email. Not a check, but a very polite rejection.

I have several theories as to why my story was not accepted for publication. All of them conveniently ignore any possibility that the writing itself may have been at fault. Although an almost total disregard for the rules of flash fiction does loom as a possibility.

Flash fiction should have a beginning, middle and end. I had a beginning, definitely had a middle, but the end? No one died, nothing was resolved, the reader could expect that the situation described in the story would gone on mostly unchanged day after day. That’s a legitimate ending for some literature or even a frustrating stage play but not flash fiction. The story should come to a close; it is a complete story unto itself, not Chapter One of something else.

In order to be kind to your editor the genre should be definable. My story was written for young adults (seriously young adults, my eight-year old son) yet it featured ghosting and taunting, so it was sort of a horror story. An editor hoping to satisfy blood-lusting horror readers would only disappoint their subscribers with my YA-horror tripe. (In defense of all tripe writers: It’s not easy writing good tripe. Anyone up to eight-years old should love tripe while starting at around ten-years old, they're likely to be too embarrassed to admit they ever enjoyed it. Luckily for tripe-writers everywhere, readers over twenty-one can indulge in a nostalgic tripe-fest every now and then.)

That’s not to say that I’ve given up on the notion of writing some flash fiction. Although, it may turn out that the format is not for me. It’s a little like Haiku or Bernie Taupin lyrics, an acquired taste. Still, at only 300 words, more or less, the temptation is too great not to give it another try. Hacks like me just need to remember that this is not some throw-away format. Writing flash fiction is a serious business. You only have a few hundred words to get your tale out. You’ll need to zero in on the gist of your story quickly as well as exercise an economy of words that would make Hemingway look like a chatter-box.

I did consider peppering this space with many of the useful links that I’ve captured regarding flash fiction. But links in a blog can quickly grow stale, turning every link into a short hop to a 404 error message faster than you can say, “Look, a Cat!”

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* I’m hoping that when using some variation of the word google to referencing any personnel web browser activity that use of an upper-case “G” will satisfy the trademark jitters of the legitimate owners of upper-case Google. Nevertheless, I would appreciate any single-word substitute for future reference that you could send my way - just in case.

I’ve Seen that Movie Too

I refer to what I write as speculative fiction. Not as in the “speculative fiction” of the masters such as Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, or Kurt Vonnegut; for that I would have to be good. But I do, in my writing, attempt to explore the thought process of the ordinary human by placing ordinary humans in unconventional situations. And yes, by situation I generally mean some science fiction or fantasy type anomaly. 

Recently I’ve been toiling away on just such an opus featuring human conflict and a science fictiony anomaly. (Note 1) The characters in my story are confronted with all sorts of dilemmas and my gimmicky anomaly provides the proper amount of fuel for their angst. Of course, the reality of the story is that the sci-fi gimmick is really nothing more than a gimmick. It is how the characters interact that is really important. I know this to be true yet…

As I have alluded to in a previous post, I don’t write 24/7. I wish I could, but I can’t. I have a 9 to 5 job, plus several other obligations from which there is no escape. I consider it a good week when I can write 2/7. This includes blogs, which I consider a therapeutic necessity when the other writing isn’t going anyplace.

I beg for patience, there is a point, of sorts.

As I said my opus does not depend upon the gimmick of a single cool idea yet…

I indulged in a non-writing re-charge moment, sometime referred to as vegetating, that involved some television. In my defense, it was quality TV – un-huh, something you can binge watch on Netflix. 

And there it was; a plot twist so brilliant that I could have written it!  Actually, I had, or was in the process of writing it. My opus! It had been encapsulated as episode #4 of Season #3. What could I do now? It was a little discouraging to say the least.

Naturally, I believe that we really do stand on the shoulders of those who went before us, but did they have to take my idea and put it on TV? Worse than that, they did a really good job.

Now, the truth is that variations of my “brilliant” idea have already appeared many times over in many different stories, yet I could always justify myself by pointing out the many differences. But this TV show was so well done and so close to the direction that I was attempting to take my story that I found myself wishing that this  TV version, had been my story.

I’d like to be able to say that at this point I came to my senses and the realization that no two executions of so-damn-close-to-the-same-idea are ever exactly alike and that my version still had plenty of new wrinkles to offer readers. (As in “readers” not too-damn-tired–to-care-any-more-at-the-end-of-the-day TV viewers, such as myself.) I would like to be able to say that I picked myself up and planted myself in front of the keyboard. Unfortunately, that would be a lie. I watched the next episode to see what happened.

Intellectually I know that my characters are in a different situation and live in a different world, even if both worlds do happen to have the same damnable device. But the key to my story isn’t the gimmick of the device, the key is how we identify and empathize with the plight of the characters, and that we care what choices they make and what happens to them. That knowledge alone should be enough to get me going again, and the truth is that it will. In fact, what will happen is that I’ll learn from what I saw. I’ll knock off a few more previously unnoticed technological loopholes, strengthen some strong points, edit away some weak points, perhaps eat a Snickers bar and then get back to work. 

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Note 1: One of the reasons I prefer to write in English is that we can easily invent new words. A lack of any real mastery of any other language would be a close second as to why I prefer English.

This is not Procrastination

WriterReadersPost is not an exercise in procrastination, or so I must tell myself. Hopefully it will contain useful information: on writing habits, software, outlining, plot development, proper lighting and suitable refreshments.

I won’t dwell, too much, on things like writers block because, although I often suffer from this writer’s malady. I actually rather call it by its other more appropriate name: Those moments when there really is something else I’d rather do. They happen and I’m not worried. I’m not hard core. I don’t believe that if I’m not writing my joy meter immediately drops to zero, maybe later when I realize that time has passed and I haven’t written, but not immediately.

At the moment I’m struggling through a growing spurt. I’m re-working a decent short story into what I hope will be an even better novel. I’m moving along, some days discouraged, some days with new found enthusiasm. (I also happen to believe that just being a writer does not require a constant depressive state, although the ability to empathize is probably essential.)

So, I’ll close out for now, not having said much of anything tonight, but with notions for greater things to come.

Test Posting: This is a test!

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